


See You On The Other Side

by Phrenotobe



Category: Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Crossover Femslash, F/F, Outrealm Shenanigans, sometimes your girlfriend is a knight to a different princess and it's okay, treating injuries painfully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 01:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18305207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe/pseuds/Phrenotobe
Summary: “Don’t do this again,” Florina said, and sniffed. “You could have got hurt.”Then, after the wind howled through the gaps of the rubble, L’Arachel stroked Florina’s curls, delighted by their volume, their softness.“Latona provides, my love,” L’Arachel said brightly, “We will endure- nay! We shall thrive.”She kissed Florina’s cheek.“Have patience, dearest. After the cold, the spring will come.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tangerinabina_de_archanea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangerinabina_de_archanea/gifts).



The outrealms opened up, six months after the end of Lyon’s war. Some loved it. Some hated it. Some escaped from one realm to the other. Renais called it coincidence. Frelia called it opportunity.   
L’Arachel called it a gift from Latona herself. 

The gates that were found weren’t really what one would call stable. They appeared without warning, spitting out animals, bits of twig, chunks of plaster and debris. Secret corners were where they showed up, but those areas quickly became known as odd places to be. It was the deep forests that Renais had, for theirs. They left things as they were, in the dark. Travellers could take their chances. Nobody knew their names. 

Frelia cleared the land, moved their farmers on. It became an overgrown place, dedicated to nothing but tall grass and overgrown wheat, broken buildings unrepaired. Those that staggered out of the broken places and found the surrounding villages soon forgot their homes, made new families, and rarely talked about the ruins. 

In the town square of Rausten’s capital, a plinth was built, with a grand and magnificent arch near to the commons and the city well. Mages were summoned, to see about stabilizing the gate to just one spot. If there were people coming to visit Rausten, they would be received with the highest of honours.

The rich moved away, even so. 

One by one, with the detritus and occasional monsters that followed, envoys came.   
Some were mages, discovering the other side from their own worlds. Some were accidents, fallen though and rattled by the journey. Some others sought sanctuary, warmed by the sun and in love with the glow. They never wanted to go home to their wars or starvation. 

Slowly, the houses filled up again.


	2. Chapter 2

Rausten, city of trade; capital of the world, as far as L’Arachel was concerned. 

L’Arachel had settled nicely into her mid twenties, and remained somewhat impulsive. The gate had stabilized. While it wasn’t her magic that had made it so, she’d taken the first steps to get there. She made a note: Ginormous success. With Canas, an adventurer-mage with enthusiasm to rival hers, she’d seen a regular stream of people from - what was it? Elibe. His magic was so different to her own. But his spells were powerful, aided by the new magic he found. Charming man. 

The woods and mountains of Renais were becoming dangerous. L’Arachel enthusiastically signed off on three squadrons of soldiers and accompanying mages to deal with whatever it was that could be found there. Anything, for her darling Eirika. 

One thing L’Arachel wanted most in all the world was to visit the worlds on the other side of the portal. But Canas had warned against it, as had most of her courtiers. The other side wasn’t stable, and constantly moved. It also didn’t have a set time. She could be flung into the past, the future, or the desolate beginning of all things.

Better not just yet, Canas said. 

One of L’Arachel’s wonderful new friends was Florina, an Elibian woman who was similarly settling into her majority. L’Arachel loved to sing out her name as she entered the room, to see the pink flush come up on her cheeks until her face was as red as a ruby bloom. She was shy with everyone and easily flustered, and tears often graced her eyes when something made her heart tender - but Florina carried herself with a straight back, no matter how much she cried. 

Until Canas said it was fine, Florina had elected to stay in Rausten. One of the portals led out to the Ilian Alps, and she said the winters were bad there. 

She busied herself around the castle, taking guard shifts to earn money. She had some kind of cancellation fee to deal with, and the price was steep. But the guard shifts were mostly decorative, and Florina herself was beautiful to look at. And so L’Arachel paid her well to stand around, and to be her guard as she meandered the grounds. 

It felt decadent and thrilling. L’Arachel loved both of those things. 

It was the garden where they walked together, slow and thoughtful over the grass. The scent of the flowers rose to meet them, caressing the breeze with every inhale, every spoken word. 

L’Arachel fancied that Florina was made for summer. She looked like lavender, and the palm of her hand fit nicely around a tulip stem, around a hand. And she was warm, and peaceful, and afraid of bees. 

In the city it was the hottest sun they’d had in years. There was a cool breeze from the portal that made the masses throng there. A market set up in the central square. 

L’Arachel, who loved the crowds and the noise, was in her element. Without her guard she meandered through the crowd with little care. She sampled the dried meats, the sweet wines, the sugared treats and pieces of folded dough that held samples of the finest street food to be found in Rausten. A charmed existence, a good life. Latona’s sun shone warmth and love over Lady L’Arachel, as was meant to be. 

Few knew how it happened. One minute, before the stabilized gate, shimmering pale and bright, a warm and happy hum like the chant of angelic voices. The next, a gut-wrenching fall through the ether, colder and colder as it came. She didn't stumble. She was pushed. 

The noise of the gate roared in her ears, the horizon a grey-white line. Static clouded her eyes, colours so pure as they sped past that they hurt to see. She didn’t know how long she’d been falling, or how long she might fall. When she called out, noise was torn from her throat. 

The horizon rushed in, flickering black grey to blinding white. She fell into grey and cold, and the wind howled like the cry of an old, mournful wolf. 

Snow? She’d never touched it. But she’d heard of it, from sweet Tana as they rode together on the march, how it lingered in the mountains even in summer. Later, from Florina too, when she spoke of home. It was grittier than she’d had cause to suspect. 

Above her, the portal, satisfied with itself, hummed and then closed with a boom, leaving L’Arachel as she lay. 

But she can walk, she can find her way home. There’s nothing broken. Fortune smiles on L’Arachel. Tonight, she will see a light in the darkness, and Latona’s kindnesses will shine upon her.

For she is the faithful, and the chosen. L’Arachel will always prevail.


	3. Chapter 3

The sun bakes the city streets dry, and not a spot of water or wine is spilled on the pavement before it evaporates, an ephemeral moment within the precious amount of time it is given to soak the cobbled tile. 

Florina didn’t think she was made for summer. Rausten was an even temperature year-round, and Florina liked the cool shade of the throne room, the baths with the filtered water, warm but not hot. Not even the dry plains of Sacae matched the overheated stone of Rausten in summer. She could feel the heat through the soles of her boots, a simmer that baked sweat before it had a chance to dry.

The ceremonial attire of an Ilian mercenary - how she wished she never confessed what it would look like. The black fur against the white of her tunic, the metal too hot on her shoulders, reflecting heat off the plate, burning her cheeks. She used her spear as a prop as she wilted, a flower scorching in the sun. 

She was at the other end of the market when it happened. A crowd that moved easily suddenly stilled, locking together. Music dimmed, went quiet. Broken chatter flickered through the crowd, establishing the mood, the time of the incident. The roar came up. The Queen was gone! The crowd locked, shifted, let Florina pass. 

She passed by the cart and the carriage, that sold forgotten food and drink. She used the quiet to buy pastries, adding them to her satchel, then sliding into the alcove made by two burly farmers, damp shirts and sweat. She angled sideways, reaching closer to the breeze from the portal. Dozla was already taking pains to usher people away, pushing back the weight of the crowd with his brawny arms. She slipped past him as he called out to her, asking that she not do anything foolish. Rennac, who had taken advantage of the crowd and Florina’s constant companionship, hadn’t been seen in weeks. 

It wasn't fortunate that Florina’s time with L’Arachel had rubbed off. She ran before he could catch her, and dived into the gate. She remembered this time, this cold. Now, it doesn’t scare her. She’s smarter. Stronger. She remembers to breathe.

When she falls, the ground is hard. She lands foot-first and screams, picking herself up and stumbling, listing to one side. Her spear clatters on the rock nearby, a belatedly-posted package spilling candy and pastries just a few feet away. 

She knows the land, at least. The third peak of Ilia’s mountain range, rising over the grazing lands of King Harth. Little sheep, her mother had always called her, for her curls, and the black and pale shapes of Ilian sheep move in and out of the patches of green and ice white. She’d never been this high on foot, but she knows the way. 

Leaning on her spear, she begins to limp down the mountain. There’s going to be some shepherd huts, down on the smoother slopes. Step by step, she makes it down.


	4. Chapter 4

L’Arachel has her tome and her healing stave. Her stomach was beginning to grumble as the sky dimmed to blue, to dark, to black. Her light linen didn’t make for a very good wall against the cold, but with her tome open, she could feel a mote of the warmth of Latona as the light reflected over her. 

The slopes were as tall going up as they were going down. L’Arachel used her stave as a prop, walking across the mountain’s width. She couldn’t feel her feet after a while, but so long as her legs moved, she’d be fine. Down in the valley, the shepherds and forresters looked up at the mote of light, and spoke of witches and lost souls, caught in the mountains and destined to die, their spirits guarding the heights of the reach. 

It was the hunter that met her first. He was a pair of eyes lost in a ring of frosted fuzz and fur, the nervous point of his bow wavering at her face. 

“Hello!” she chimed, through the chatter of her teeth.   
“Witch,” he said.  
L’Arachel extended her arm to greet him. Her grand gesture was difficult; she felt stiff and tired and cold from her shoulder all the way down to her fingertips. He tucked his bow away slowly, taking her hand and spreading her fingers open with his gloved thumbs. They hurt, red and half-numb as they were. He pressed on them, tilting his head to listen as she squeaked.   
“Come with me,” he said, “Before it’s too late. Ghost or not.” 

Ghost or not, L’Arachel was led down the mountain, picked up as she stumbled, carried down the mountain to a little village. The drifts were piled high, moved out of the public road by movement and melt. His cabin was made of logs that interlocked, bark-outward to weather the frost and the damp. 

The hunter had a mother, who spoke in a constant mumble and murmur, only pausing to raise her voice and speak to others. She clucked like an old hen, bringing the hot water from the fire and pouring it into a bowl. 

While she works, she scolds her, digging fingernails into L’Arachel’s fingertips to provoke the pulse, laying warm cloth over her hands and holding them as she screams. 

It went on though the night, as the once-midwife-turned-healer-turned-surgeon did as she could, and L’Arachel sobbed until no tears would come.


	5. Chapter 5

When she woke, the sun was blazing through the coloured glass, covering her in blue, in green, in gold. L’Arachel was warmed by the light, kissed by the grace of Latona.

The hunter was kneeling by the bowl by her side, trimming down his beard to shave it. Seeing her awake, he jumped to his feet with half a mustache left, and ran for the door. As he went out, a girl entered, leaning on a crutch tucked under one arm. Her cloud of curls was no stranger to L’Arachel.

“Darling!” L’Arachel said, raising her raw hands to greet her.   
Florina could not run to meet her, and so she took the walk to L’Arachel, and waited, her weight whole on the other knee. The old woman helped her down to sit. She thanks her, in the mountain tongue that L’Arachel cannot speak, in part because the Queen of Rausten would never mumble.

“I wanted to find you. I thought you’d be lost forever.”   
L’Arachel can’t hold her. Her fingers are bound and swadded in white linen marked with disinfectant, the sharp scent of herbs and pine needles ground to paste. She leans forward to gently bump against the fluff of Florina’s fringe.

Florina has her hands to use. It’s her leg that doesn’t work, and even then, she’s found a way to be agile.

She guides L’Arachel’s chin up to kiss, a sigh as they meet for the first time. In her lap, L’Arachel curls her hands and begs Latona for one more blessing, to hold somebody who she now knows is the most dear thing in the world, the one who fills her heart from edge to edge, so full it hurts with how it fits the brim. 

“Do you love me, Florina?” L’Arachel asks, as the moment breaks and the world rushes back in.   
Florina only laughs, a gentle hand on her cheek.


End file.
